Page 44 of Where I Should’ve Been

I grin into the rim of my cup, heat crawling up the back of my neck as I already start to picture her in my bed with wild hair and bare skin.

Oh yeah. We’re just acquaintances, all right.

18

Breezy

Sunday, January 24th

Sunday morning in Red Bridge feels like I’m living someone else’s life.

Instead of being hunched over my laptop in Chelsea, answering twenty emails before nine a.m., I’m sitting at my brother’s kitchen table in leggings, hair in a half-bun, sipping coffee while my adorable niece creates what can only be described as culinary carnage.

It’s just past nine, and breakfast is a full-body event. There’s yogurt on the high chair tray, a spoon clattering rhythmically against the bowl, and Autumn babbling through a mouthful of banana.

“Mo’ nana!” she insists, pointing to the counter behind her with her chubby hand.

“You’ve already had a whole banana, sweet pea,” I tell her and point to the bowl that still has some strawberry yogurt in it. “How about you finish your yogurt now?”

“Yo-yo, Bee!” She giggles, then smears yogurt across her cheek like war paint.

It’s just me and this little cutie for the next few hours. Bennett is in Paris for the next two days for a gallery showing, and since Norah is his manager now, she had to start the day on a few conference calls for his ever-expanding art empire and just left about twenty minutes ago to run some errands in Molene in the name of restocking Bennett’s studio with his favorite paints.

Truthfully, old Breezy would’ve bristled at that. I would’ve felt edged out of the inner circle I helped build. I mean, I spent years handling Bennett’s shows, his deals, his entire damn trajectory. I was the PR machine behind his art, even though I was running Bishop Galleries and that was more than a full-time job in itself.

But sitting here now, watching Autumn dunk her entire hand into a bowl of yogurt like she’s mining for treasure, I don’t feel left out for the first time in my life. I feel…relieved.

And that scares me.

“Uh-oh,” Autumn says solemnly after she manages to flick a handful of yogurt onto the kitchen floor. It lands on the hardwood with a wet splat.

“Uh-oh,” I say, wiping up the mess with a paper towel while simultaneously biting my lip to fight my laughter. Goodness knows, once a toddler figures out they can make you laugh by doing something, they’ll keep doing it over and over again. “Bye-bye, yogurt.”

“Bye-bye!” She delightfully kicks her little sock-covered feet. “Bye-bye, Yo-yo!”

It’s been two weeks since I landed here in Red Bridge, and somehow, I’ve slowly become a part of their household rhythm, helping out with grocery shopping or watching Autumn whenever I can. Norah even did some of my laundry earlier this week, and when I found my sweaters folded on the dryer like some kind of domestic peace offering, I teared up.

To be cared for is…new. Quietly frightening. I can’t decide if my growing comfort here is a good sign or a bad one, but for now, I’ve resigned to sitting in the unfamiliarity until I figure it out.

Norah’s also been forwarding me emails she’s received from gallery owners and museum curators, even a couple of headhunters from the art world, asking what I’m doing now that I’m no longer with Bishop Galleries.

Apparently, word travels fast when you fall off the pedestal.

And every morning last week, I took my laptop to CAFFEINE with full intentions of responding to them. I’d sit there with my coffee, staring at the blinking cursor in an empty draft, and then…nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to type a single word.

Because the truth is, I don’t know what to say.

Because I don’t know yet if I even want to say it.

Autumn hums to herself now, a tuneless little song, yogurt dripping from her spoon, and I smile at her cute little face.

“Bee sing!” she demands. “Sing, Bee!”

I don’t hesitate to dive right into her demand. “Old MacDonald had a farm…” I start, pausing long enough for her to join in.

“E-I-E-I-O!” she shouts, clapping her hands excitedly.

Her joy is infectious, and before I know it, we’re both going through all the farm animals together, Autumn giggling and smiling and clapping the entire time.